Alone to Everest

The story of some of Earl Denman’s mountaineering exploits to Africa, culminating in his journey in 1947 through Tibet to Everest with Tenzing Norgay (later to become one of the first two individuals known to reach the summit of Mount Everest) is here told for the first time.

Alone to Everest tells the remarkable story of a remarkable man. Among many present-day accounts of hardship and adventure, it stands out as the testimony of a man for whom modern civilisation and modern equipment mean little, and who is happiest, as he says, “walking barefoot on warm grass or wet rocks; in probing deep into cool, quiet forests; in days of healthy activity and evenings of restfulness spent beside a warming fire.” Denman’s achievements in the Belgian Congo—where with only local guides as companions he became one of the first men to climb all eight of the high and remove Virunga Mountains—made him realise that he would never rest until he had made a similar expedition to the highest mountain in the world. At the time £250 was all he had in the world; his equipment was of the simplest and cheapest. His journey by sea and land to Darjeeling was made under great difficulties. His meeting with Karma Paul, who introduced him to Tenzing and his friend Ang Dowa, was entirely fortuitous; he was expressly forbidden to enter Tibet (Nepal at that time was entirely closed to the Western world). Yet with all these handicaps he and the two Sherpas set off alone from Darjeeling, made their way, with many mishaps, through Sikkim and Tibet to the Rongbuk monastery, and thence to Everest itself. Appalling weather conditions finally drove them back, but not before they had attained a height of 23,500 feet.

Everest has now been climbed, and no doubt will be again. But Denman’s feat, though superficially unsuccessful, remains a triumph against fantastic odds.